How Stories Connect Us

No one has ever sat in the audience of a presentation and hoped the person speaking would be bad presenter. Every person hopes that they will be engaged by the speaker. Since our earliest days sitting around a campfire, human beings have been wired to make sense of the world through stories and indeed we are always seeking out great storytellers in our midst. That’s the person you see at the bar always spinning a tale or your friend who has everyone around the dinner table on the edge of their seats. If you can become that great storyteller whether on a stage or off it, you’re going to be able to persuade much more profoundly.

This is for two very important reasons:

The first is that storytelling is a form of vulnerability. Vulnerability, is emotional disclosure and it gives other people information about us with which they can connect. It also allows other people to see we are more like them than we may first judge. As a human connection expert, for me, vulnerability is the only way we start to build deeper and more authentic human connections. When a great storyteller offers their story up, and we start to see our commonalities in their story, it literally usurps out brain. Studies show our brain activity synchs up with the storyteller and we imagine our own loved ones as the characters in the story the storyteller is weaving. Telling stories is literally a form of brain connection.

You can see this in motion when I shared my story at Google in 2018 HERE.

The second reason stories help connect us and therefore allow you to persuade your audience more profoundly is due to the fact that we remember what we feel strongly. So let me ask you, if in a dry corporate presentation, a leader were to inject a highly descriptive and engaging story. What would you remember weeks after the presentation? Probably the story and not the rest of the presentation. This is because the story made you feel something and the facts and figures did not. We remember our profound childhood memories, the ones in which our parent passed or something exciting happened, these moments stand out for us because the feelings we experienced during them was so strong. So if you want to be a next level connector on stage or off, it’s in your best interest to become a better storyteller, it will make you more memorable.

So how do we this?

·??????Use less slides, images are reductive and your imagination is limitless

·??????Theatre of the mind

·??????Show the story through describing what the senses are feeling, thinking, touching, tasting, smelling etc instead of just doling out facts

·??????Using metaphor and analogy

I know this is a lot of information but don’t worry, I’ve explained each technique and how to use it in a full hour-long webinar for you.

To get access to it, just click HERE to watch.

Simone Heng is a human connection specialist and former international broadcaster for Virgin Radio Dubai, HBO Asia, and CNBC, among others. With over fifteen years of experience around the world as a communicator on-air, on stage, and one-on-one, connection has always been her life’s work. As a speaker, Simone inspires people to connect in a world thirsty for connection. She has spoken to thousands and often for Fortune 500 organizations. Her clients include Meta, Google, Bytedance, Salesforce, SAP, L’Oréal, TEDx, The United Nations, and many more. Simone and her work have been featured on CNN and in Forbes, SCMP, Vogue, Elle, and Harper’s Bazaar, among others.